Welcome to adobo-down-under!

Musings. Family. Food. Stories. Cooking. Recipes. Eating. A recipe journal. From simple Filipino dishes to challenging recipes and exciting gastronomical failures. This is for my girls to look back on for comfort, memories, laughs, love and lots of food!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The colour purple signals the
middle of spring in Sydney. When jacarandas are in full bloom and every nook
and corner is just alight with these purple beauties.They’re gorgeous from afar and up close.The downside is that these purple beauties
don’t last long.A few weeks after they
bloom, they’re already down on the ground wilting away.But never mind. Jacarandas are beautiful
no matter what.

And so it goes without saying, my
inspiration for this month’s Sweet Adventures Blog Hop hosted by JJ from 84th and 3rd, is inspired by this
Australian flora.The colour
purple.And its timing that it is my
mother’s fave colour, and the weekend of the SABH coincides with my mom’s birthday.And even though she’s in the Philippines
celebrating with my dad and other family members, we celebrated her birthday
here too.With a cake that’s her
favourite colour.Purple yam cake (or
Ube cake in Filipino parlance).

Ube or purple yam is an
indigenous Filipino root crop.Alongside
the sweet potato, cassava or tapioca, parsnip, turnip and taro, the purple yam
is a favourite ingredient in many Filipino sweets.These purple beauties are added made into
cakes, cupcakes, puddings, rice cakes, tarts or pastries, flavoured in jams and preserves, topped in coldtreats, ice cream and even shakes! As a
matter of fact, they are used in more sweets than savoury dishes.Considering it is infact a vegetable makes it
for the perfect “vegetable” showcase for my post.Check out Jun Blog's post about this special vegetable and why Filipinos love it!

Just some of the many purple yam products from the Philippines

To make this cake is like making
any cake that uses vegetables (such as beetroot or cauliflower), you’ll need to
cook the purple yam, mash them and pass through a sieve to get the finer texture.

L: Frozen grated purple yam and R: Powdered dehydrated purple yam

But since it’s just a few of us
around here, I’m sharing you a cheat version. Sssshhhh!I’ve used dehydrated purple yam
powder, which I simply rehydrated with water, simmering for 20 minutes.You can also buy frozen grated purple yam
from Filipino stores and select Asian shops across Sydney. There is also that
hint of purple yam essence which you can add for that extra bit of flavour and
colour.Otherwise, you can just use any
food colouring combining red and blue till you get the perfect hue.Without the colouring, you’ll get a very
light purple cake, but still keep the purple yam flavour. So either way, you
can’t go wrong.

You don't need this much! Just one bottle will do. I always just tend to overreact when food shopping!

There are a lot of variations on
this cake around Google, but I was most inspired by this version from allrecipes.com
and Pinay in Texas Cooking Corner sans the macapuno (Coconut sports) filling and using Italian buttercream as filling and icing. Just because I like meringue-based frostings! This cake has seen many afternoon teas and
desserts and birthdays in our home.

Place a paper doily on your cake
tray and spread a tablespoon of frosting. This keeps the cake from moving
around.Place the first layer of cake on
the doily.

Pipe the filling onto the cake
using any kind of tip, or simply use a spatula and spread the filling evenly.

Place the second round cake on
the filling and continue icing the cake sides and top.

Using your hands, gently tap some of the crumbed off cuts on the sides of the cake.

Use remaining icing to decorate around the cake or the top.

There are other ways to make this
cake.You can use a rectangle cookie
sheets with sides and make thinner cakes (cooking times will be less) and make
a Swiss roll type of ube cake.For the
icing, you can use cream cheese frosting (sans the lemon) or a simple Creme Chantilly recipe (cream
whipped with icing sugar and vanilla). I believe any kind of white icing will work with this purple cake.

This lovely cake was showcased for dessert last weekend. When the skies were blue, and the jacarandas in full view. We had backyard barbeque with the family and some friends, ate and drank some, and listened to jazz and 80s music all afternoon. Spring, weekends, barbeque, family, friends and cake. What else could you ask for?